Research report: Emotional eating as a stress- and emotion-regulation coping mechanism: a systematic review of quantitative evidence across populations

A systematic review of 19 quantitative studies found context-dependent associations between emotional eating, perceived stress, negative affect, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and difficulties regulating emotions. Most of the included research was observational and relied on self-reported measures, limiting conclusions about causal direction and the reasons people eat in response to emotional states. Researchers systematically searched PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and the Web of Science Core Collection for quantitative studies examining emotional eating in relation to stress, negative affect, and emotion-regulation processes.

The review covered adolescents aged 12 years and older, university students, and adults. It synthesized cross-sectional, longitudinal, experimental, diary-based, and ecological momentary assessment studies, with methodological quality evaluated using the relevant Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tools. These designs differed in their ability to address associations, temporal ordering, and experimentally induced changes, so they were interpreted as complementary forms of evidence rather than as equally strong tests of the same question.

Across the studies, emotional eating was positively associated with perceived stress, negative affect, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and emotion-regulation difficulties. Lower emotional and appetite awareness was also associated with greater emotional eating, although the review does not establish that such differences cause eating behavior. Laboratory studies indicated that stress or experimentally induced affect altered eating-related responses in some subgroups.

Diary-based and ecological momentary assessment studies supplied more limited evidence about temporal ordering, making it difficult to determine whether emotional states preceded eating episodes. In one adolescent ecological momentary assessment study, greater negative emodiversity was associated with higher trait emotional eating, but that result does not demonstrate that negative emotional experiences immediately trigger eating or that eating regulates them. Several studies reported higher emotional-eating scores among women and among people with higher body mass index, but these patterns were not universal across the review’s population and study designs.

The findings therefore identify group differences that appeared in some settings rather than consistent features of emotional eating. Prospective evidence also linked emotional eating and psychological distress with subsequent increases in high-sugar food and drink consumption. This temporal association does not by itself establish that emotional eating caused the later changes, and the review provides no basis for assuming a single mechanism across all participants.

Overall, the synthesis supports a qualified description of emotional eating as potentially serving a stress- or emotion-related coping function in some circumstances. The recurring associations with distress and emotion-regulation difficulties make coping a plausible interpretation, while the laboratory findings show that induced affect can influence eating-related responses in certain subgroups. However, the predominance of observational evidence and self-report, together with limited evidence about temporal ordering, prevents the review from proving that people eat in order to manage emotions, that this behavior is effective, or that the pattern generalizes across populations.

The authors conclude that further prospective, experimental, and intervention studies are needed to clarify the underlying mechanisms and clinical relevance of the observed associations.

Subject of Research: Systematic review of emotional eating, stress, negative affect, and emotion regulation across adolescent and adult populations

Article Title: Emotional eating as a stress- and emotion-regulation coping mechanism: a systematic review of quantitative evidence across populations

Article References: Saha, S., Choudhary, S., Choudhary, P. K., Kabasakal, S. A., Katanić, B., & Bangari, D. (2026). Emotional eating as a stress- and emotion-regulation coping mechanism: a systematic review of quantitative evidence across populations. Journal of Eating Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40337-026-01787-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40337-026-01787-4

Keywords: emotional eating, stress, negative affect, emotion regulation, psychological distress, systematic review, adolescents, adults, ecological momentary assessment, self-reported measures, Emotional, eating